National Enquirerhttp://www.adweek.com/taxonomy/term/5370/all
enNational Enquirer EIC Dylan Howard Explains the Mag’s New Focus on Major News Stories Like ISIShttp://www.adweek.com/news/press/national-enquirer-eic-dylan-howard-explains-mag-s-new-focus-major-news-stories-isis-160683
Emma Bazilian<p>
<img alt="" src="/files/uploads/SPACER-652.gif" style="width: 10px; height: 1px; " /><br />
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<img src="/files/imagecache/node-detail/dylan-howard-01-2014.jpg" style="height: 865px; width: 333px;" />
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<span class="meta-credit">Photo: Alfred Maskeroni</span></p>
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<span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">&nbsp;</span><u><strong>Specs</strong></u><br />
<strong>Who </strong> Dylan Howard<br />
<strong>Age </strong>32<br />
<strong>New gig</strong> Editor in chief of the <a href="http://www.nationalenquirer.com/" target="_blank">National Enquirer</a>; editorial director of <a href="http://RadarOnline.com" target="_blank">RadarOnline.com</a>; and vp, news at AMI<br />
<strong>Old gig</strong> Editor in chief of Radar Online<br />
<br />
<strong>The National Enquirer moved from Boca Raton, Florida to New York shortly after you took over in June. Why was that decision made? </strong><br />
In many ways it was important because I was based here in New York, but it was also a business decision. As a company, our operations are based here in New York City. Our other celebrity titles are here, including Radar Online, which is the other property that I look after. It made a lot of strategic sense to streamline our resources here because, when you look at the overall operations of the newsroom, what&rsquo;s the point of having two separate photo desks across Radar and the Enquirer when you can have one photo desk with the same amount of staff, but with people who can operate across both digital and print?<br />
<br />
<strong>When you began your new role, there was a lot of talk about rebranding the Enquirer and making it more of a legitimate news outlet. But that&rsquo;s been said before. What&rsquo;s different now? </strong><br />
Others can judge the content since I took over, but there has been a distinct change in many of the stories that we have presented. We&rsquo;ve covered the beheadings of these <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/islamic-state-militants-exploit-digital-services-disseminate-video-apparent-murder-159596" target="_blank">journalists related to ISIS</a>. We&rsquo;ve done a feature story on the &ldquo;forgotten Americans,&rdquo; the 10 people who are still in captivity that we don&rsquo;t typically talk about. In one of my first issues, we had an investigation into the <a href="http://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/special-report-sick-slaughter-american-hero-hounds" target="_blank">systematic slaughter of &ldquo;hero hounds,&rdquo;</a> dogs who served in combat zones but on their return to America they couldn&rsquo;t be placed back into homes. Those are stories that probably would not have been in the National Enquirer three years ago.<br />
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<strong>In 2010, the Enquirer was deemed eligible for a Pulitzer Prize for breaking the story of John Edwards&rsquo; affair. Why hasn&rsquo;t there been a story of that level since then? </strong><br />
The<a href="http://www.nationalenquirer.com/photo-gallery/how-enquirer-broke-john-edwards-love-child-scandal" target="_blank"> John Edwards story</a> will go down in history as one of the greatest scoops to be in the National Enquirer, and probably one of the greatest political scoops in recent memory. What I can tell you is that the pursuit of the story is ever-present.<br />
<br />
<strong>It&rsquo;s been said that the staff cuts at the Enquirer in recent years has made it more difficult to get another story of that magnitude. Do you think that&rsquo;s true? </strong><br />
It is, to some extent, true. You can&rsquo;t do as much as you used to if your newsroom had 150 people and it now has 60 people. But it&rsquo;s about looking at how to best boost morale in a news environment like that and utilizing those resources. Internally, the way in which we were spending our news budget has drastically changed. It&rsquo;s freed up funds for us to be able to go out on the road more than we had previously.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Enquirer doesn&rsquo;t have a very strong digital presence. Are you planning on building that out or do you see Radar Online becoming its digital arm? </strong><br />
Radar Online has been the focus of our attention over the past six years. All of our digital resources have been poured into that. That&rsquo;s a strategic business decision, because if you look at the average age of a Radar reader, it&rsquo;s almost half the age of an Enquirer reader. Much of the younger demographic is pursuing their news online, and we&rsquo;re servicing that. The Enquirer is traditionally a middle-aged American, predominantly woman, and they consume their news differently.<br />
<br />
<strong>Are you actively trying to attract younger readers to the Enquirer? </strong><br />
Absolutely. But the younger reader is still as enthused about the older celebrity as they ever have been. Brad and Angelina sold magazines 10 years ago, Brad and Jen sold magazines 12 years ago, and they still do it today. They&rsquo;re going to sell magazines for many years to come.</p>
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The PressAmiDylan HowardMagazine ContentNational EnquirerOnlineRadar OnlineVideoMagazineMon, 13 Oct 2014 01:06:57 +0000160683 at http://www.adweek.comBauer Names David Perel Editor of In Touch and Life & Stylehttp://www.adweek.com/news/press/bauer-names-david-perel-editor-touch-and-life-style-156108
Emma Bazilian<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/fea-david-perel-hed-2011_0.jpg"> <p>
Following his <a href="http://gossipextra.com/2013/08/05/david-perel-fired-american-media-2828/" target="_blank">surprise exit</a> from American Media Inc. last August, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/press/tabloid-king-spills-his-guts-132217" target="_blank">David Perel</a>&nbsp;has landed at&nbsp;rival Bauer Publishing as editorial director of In Touch and Life &amp; Style, effective immediately.</p>
<p>
Perel joined AMI as a reporter for the National Enquirer in 1985, eventually rising to editor in chief. During his tenure, the Enquirer broke a number of major stories, including Rush Limbaugh&rsquo;s addiction to prescription drugs and John Edwards&rsquo; extramarital affair and illegitimate child, for which the tabloid received a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Perel later became editor of AMI&rsquo;s Star and oversaw the relaunch of Radar Online as managing editor, while also holding the title of AMI evp, digital content.</p>
<p>
Since his departure from AMI, Perel has been president of editorial consulting firm Next Act Media.</p>
<p>
Bauer makes most of its money at the newsstand and has been a latecomer to digital. In a statement, Bauer said that one of Perel&rsquo;s main tasks will be building In Touch and Life &amp; Style&rsquo;s digital business. &ldquo;[Perel&rsquo;s] strong relationships in the entertainment industry as well as his success in developing digital platforms will be invaluable to our business efforts moving forward,&rdquo; said Bauer Publishing evp Sebastian Raatz.</p>
<p>
Bauer also announced that Christopher Yates, a former digital vp at Time Inc., will be joining Bauer Media Group, the company&#39;s ad sales arm, as its new vp, digital.</p>
The PressAmerican Media Inc.Bauer PublishingDavid PerelIn TouchLife & StyleNational EnquirerRadar OnlineMagazineWed, 05 Mar 2014 15:57:58 +0000156108 at http://www.adweek.comPeople Hits Newsstand Gold With Royal Baby Coverhttp://www.adweek.com/news/press/people-hits-newsstand-gold-royal-baby-cover-151534
Emma Bazilian<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/royal-baby-cover-hed2-2013.jpg"> <p>
Last week, Time Inc.&#39;s People scored <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/people_scores_palace_coup_with_baby_ObwHLGzrfYesnbJKYWgp4J" target="_blank">a major victory</a> (in the world of celebrity weeklies, at least) by publishing a full-page photo of Kate Middleton and her <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/press/celeb-media-prepares-royal-baby-blowout-151180" target="_blank">just-born Royal Baby</a> on its cover&mdash;and was the only magazine in the category to do so. Judging by early estimates, the issue will rank as one of People&rsquo;s best sellers in a long time.</p>
<p>
Five days after the &ldquo;special collector&rsquo;s issue&rdquo; had been on newsstands, its single-copy sales had already increased 21 percent over average sales for the past 26 weeks, according to Magazine Information Network, which tracks magazine retail sales. Figures are based on point of sale data from 3,426 retail locations, and final sales tend to track close to the sample, according to MagNet. (As of Monday, People said it didn&#39;t have numbers available.)</p>
<p>
Newsstand results were mixed for other celebrity titles, which only managed to dedicate a fraction of their cover space to the birth of Prince George Alexander Louis. According to sample data from MagNet, sales of the current issue of Us Weekly were up 7 percent over the average for the past 26 weeks, but sales of InTouch were off 6.7 percent and the National Enquirer down 4.8 percent.</p>
The Presscelebrity weekliesInTouchNational EnquirerPeopleRoyal BabyUs WeeklyMagazineWed, 31 Jul 2013 00:34:46 +0000151534 at http://www.adweek.comGet Real http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/get-real-139908
Lucia Moses<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/get-real-hed-2012.jpg"> <p>
For years, few brands were associated with golf more than Buick&mdash;and no player was associated with golf more than Tiger Woods. The automaker reportedly paid Woods north of $50 million over eight years to brandish its logo and bring a younger edge to its products.</p>
<p>
But in 2008&mdash;a full year before a <em>National Enquirer</em> expos&eacute; about his galloping infidelity would tarnish his image and make a crashed Escalade in the dark Florida night as synonymous with the name <a href="/node/139491">Tiger Woods as the Masters green blazer</a>&mdash;General Motors dumped him. Back then, former GM vice chairman Bob Lutz remarked that Woods &ldquo;did little to help sell cars.&rdquo; And Buick didn&rsquo;t just quit Woods&mdash;it started employing &ldquo;real people,&rdquo; as opposed to celebrities or actors, in its marketing campaigns.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t anticipate us going back and having a relationship with a celebrity like Tiger Woods again&mdash;I&rsquo;m not sure anyone really believed that Tiger Woods drove a Buick,&rdquo; says Craig Bierley, Buick&rsquo;s director of advertising and promotions. &ldquo;I think you start to push the limits of credibility. There are more effective ways of communicating with the consumer without using celebrities, with really great creative.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/what-do-these-real-people-think-ads-starring-real-people-139960" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="/files/fea-real-people-01-2012.jpg" style="float: right; width: 195px; height: 1009px; " /></a>Buick isn&rsquo;t alone. Lately, marketers have fewer stars in their eyes. Only one in 10 ads now features a celebrity, down from a peak of 19 percent in 2004, according to Millward Brown, which has tracked the trend, mostly by way of TV spots, for the last dozen years.</p>
<p>
Ann Green, Millward Brown&rsquo;s senior partner for client solutions, says marketers are rethinking their relationships with high-profile figures in light of celebrity scandals and the weak economy. &ldquo;Advertisers as a whole have to be very smart and very aggressive about how they spend every single dollar,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;A bad phase in a celebrity&rsquo;s life can damage a brand&rsquo;s image and significantly erode the return they receive on their marketing investments.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
It&rsquo;s no wonder, then, that we&rsquo;re seeing more ads featuring everyday people, a time-tested strategy that gave us such iconic advertising moments as the Coke vs. Pepsi taste test, those Folgers crystals hidden-camera ads and, more recently, Dove&rsquo;s celebrated &ldquo;Real beauty&rdquo; campaign. Of late, still more brands are turning to Average Joe instead of Angelina Jolie to hawk their products.</p>
<p>
A few examples: For its &ldquo;Drive one&rdquo; campaign, Ford had actual customers give testimonials at mock press conferences&mdash;this, some time after Nutrisystem replaced Dan Marino and Marie Osmond with everyday folks as its spokespeople. In its campaign &ldquo;Sea food differently,&rdquo; Red Lobster put its own employees front and center, retiring its old spots featuring professional actors. Grey New York, which developed the Red Lobster effort, took a similar creative approach for Ally Bank and Febreze. &ldquo;Brands are asking for more authentic communications,&rdquo; says Tor Myhren, president and chief creative officer of Grey New York. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re stepping back from the casting and saying instead of using actors or celebrities, let&rsquo;s use real people.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
The result is creative that stands in stark, sometimes even gritty contrast to the typical super-slick TV spot.</p>
<p>
Take the typical commercials for fabric and air fresheners, showing housewives in impossibly pristine, sweet-smelling suburban homes. The Febreze spots went against type, putting ordinary people in blindfolds and plunking them in stinky situations like dirty restaurants and filthy living rooms.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;That one is probably the most shocking of any of them,&rdquo; Myhren says of the Febreze ads. &ldquo;It was a brand that, for a long time, was as much about putting more classic actors in situations that were very unreal, and we were painting the perfect-smelling world ... I think it really caught people&rsquo;s attention.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
When real people are used in combination with a social message, the effect can be even more impactful. In 2004, Dove made a splash with &ldquo;Real beauty,&rdquo; which won plaudits for picturing young women who had bodies typical of the average American woman rather than the impossibly perfect waifs preferred by so many marketers. Brands such as Nike and Adidas have also sought to portray women&rsquo;s bodies in realistic ways, but no campaign was quite as sensational or as groundbreaking as that of Dove, which brashly challenged society&rsquo;s standards of beauty and encouraged women to embrace their bodies as is.</p>
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<p>
Celebrities may seem as unkillable as cockroaches, spawning endless reality television shows and still helping peddle the millions of magazines and tabloids&mdash;and yet, in this culture of overexposure, oversharing and a media that runs 24/7, they also threaten to be less special, less admired and less influential.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Popular culture lets celebrities be transparent&mdash;and the more information you have, the less relevant they are,&rdquo; explains John Colasanti, CEO of Solve, a Minneapolis agency that has put non-celebrities in campaigns for Harley-Davidson and Medifast. &ldquo;If you talk to consumers, they understand celebrities have trainers and contracts and are motivated in different ways than consumers are.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Research suggests that while celebrity endorsements can be successful given the right individual and context, it&rsquo;s doubtful how effective they really are. A 2011 study by Ace Metrix of 2,600 TV ads found that on average, celebrity ads scored much lower than non-celebrity ads in terms of effectiveness. &ldquo;People have told me, celebrities are surprised they can&rsquo;t get hired,&rdquo; says branding expert Eli Portnoy. &ldquo;I know of a couple of fairly A-list celebrities who are looking for endorsement work and are just getting turned down.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Anyone can see that advertisers haven&rsquo;t abandoned celebrities altogether. And yet, even brands that are still starstruck are being more judicious&mdash;employing stricter morals clauses, for example. That desire for greater due diligence has given rise to new businesses such as fanDNA, a joint venture of PMK*BNC and Interpret that matches brands with celebrities based on their social media activity and consumers&rsquo; attitudes. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not just, how many Twitter followers do they have? We&rsquo;re getting into a lot of detail,&rdquo; says Chris Robichaud, CEO of PMK*BNC.</p>
<p>
Last year, Q Scores Co. saw growth of 10 percent to 15 percent in proprietary studies that match brands to personalities, says evp Henry Schafer. &ldquo;That kind of research is much more prevalent and important than ever before,&rdquo; Schafer says.</p>
<p>
Those in the endorsement business insist there&rsquo;s been no decline in their business. They say that as the economy has improved, brands are returning to celebrities, which they see as a safe harbor and a way to be heard through the marketing ruckus. As for those studies in which the public insists it isn&rsquo;t swayed by celebrities, Robichaud of PMK*BNC contends that &ldquo;subconsciously, they want to be like them&mdash;it&rsquo;s how we all are wired.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
One point of agreement is that the definition of celebrity has become broader with the rise of reality stars. &ldquo;There are velvet ropes to see Guy Fieri&mdash;they are the new celebrities,&rdquo; says Portnoy. Adds David Reeder, vp of Los Angeles-based personality licensing firm GreenLight: &ldquo;The endorsement areas have expanded. If you talk to talent agencies, their rosters have exploded.&rdquo; The appeal of these emerging stars is that they&rsquo;re cheaper than established names and can be very targeted.</p>
<p>
The strategy isn&rsquo;t always a winning one. When Sears introduced its Kardashian Kollection last year, the line failed to deliver the retailer a much-needed boost.</p>
<p>
Grey&rsquo;s Myhren tracks the anti-celebrity trend back to the Clinton sex scandal, which took overexposure of and disillusionment with the famous to a whole new level. It was helped along by the rise of digital media and the explosion in transparency and user-generated content it enabled.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;People are taking control,&rdquo; Myhren says. &ldquo;Everybody can film themselves now. That immediately opens you up for user-generated content. Whether it&rsquo;s on YouTube or Facebook, we&rsquo;re so used to seeing less professionally done movies. Because we&rsquo;re used to seeing things that are less slick, it becomes more acceptable for advertisers to do that. Because of how companies are becoming more and more exposed because of the digital age, part of this trend is that we&rsquo;re going to make our communications a little more real, a little more honest.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Despite its ill-fated relationship with Tiger Woods and Bierley&rsquo;s comments about the pitfalls of celebrity pitchmen, Buick still turns to celebrities now and again, among them Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to build a relationship with people,&rdquo; Bierley says. &ldquo;People still spend money. But making more responsible choices is more of what&rsquo;s happened in the past couple of years. Transparency is a much greater issue.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
While it may be on the upswing, the use of ordinary people in advertising has its limitations. The conceit doesn&rsquo;t always work&mdash;especially when a script or acting is involved, Myhren points out. Then, there&rsquo;s the instant-recognition factor celebrities will always bring to the table.</p>
<p>
For better or for worse, celebrity endorsements are here to stay. &ldquo;When you use celebrities, it&rsquo;s always a little bit risky,&rdquo; Schafer says. &ldquo;But the rewards can be greater thanthe risks.&rdquo;<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/what-do-these-real-people-think-ads-starring-real-people-139960" target="_self">Find out <em>What Real People Think Of Ads Starring Real People&nbsp;</em>here.&nbsp;</a></p>
Advertising & BrandingTelevisionMarketingBuickCelebritiesDan MarinoFebrezeFolgersFordNational EnquirerOnlineRed LobsterTiger WoodsVideoMagazineRetailSportsTue, 01 May 2012 10:08:37 +0000139908 at http://www.adweek.comReport: Hidden Cameras Nab 'To Catch a Predator' Host Cheating on Wifehttp://www.adweek.com/news/television/report-hidden-cameras-nab-catch-predator-host-cheating-wife-133095
Emma Bazilian<p>
You&rsquo;d think that after years of using hidden cameras to bust alleged pedophiles on MSNBC&rsquo;s <em>To Catch a Predator</em>, Chris Hansen would be an expert at avoiding a highly public sexual predicament. As it turns out, he&#39;s not.</p>
<p>
Last weekend, the <em>National Enquirer</em> <a href="http://www.nationalenquirer.com/world-exclusive-predator-catcher-nbc-dateline-chris-hansen-caught-cheating" target="_blank">turned the tables</a> on Hansen, who is best known for confronting would-be sex offenders on the controversial <em>Dateline</em> series. In a <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009511/To-Catch-Predators-Chris-Hansen-caught-cheating-wife.html" target="_blank">hidden-camera stunt</a> right out of his own show, the tabloid says it captured footage of Hansen on a date with Cristyn Caddell, an anchor at NBC affiliate WPTV in West Palm Beach, Fla., who is apparently &ldquo;young enough to be his daughter&rdquo; (she&rsquo;s 30 to his 51). The <em>Enquirer</em> reports that it filmed as the pair arrived for dinner at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Manalapan, Fla., then drove to Caddell&rsquo;s apartment in Palm Beach, where they spent the night.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
Hansen lives in Connecticut with his wife and two sons but has recently been spending time in Florida to investigate the disappearance of James &quot;Jimmy T&quot; Trindade, a local man who left on a boat trip for the Bahamas in 2006 and hasn&rsquo;t been seen since.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
A source told the <em>Enquirer </em>that Hansen and Caddell met at a West Palm Beach club during one of Hansen&rsquo;s trips, and that the two &ldquo;got on so well that she ended up going back to his room at The Colony Hotel in Palm Beach&mdash;and later boasted to pals about staying the night with him.&rdquo; According to the <em>Enquirer,</em> Hansen and Caddell have been involved ever since, regularly meeting in Florida and once in New York.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
TelevisionChris HansenDateline NBCNational EnquirerTo Catch a PredatorWed, 29 Jun 2011 21:44:40 +0000133095 at http://www.adweek.comTabloid King Spills His Guts! http://www.adweek.com/news/press/tabloid-king-spills-his-guts-132217
Lucia Moses<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/fea-david-perel-hed-2011.jpg"> <p>
David Perel is stretched out on the couch in a conference room in the Manhattan headquarters of American Media Inc., the parent company of the celebrity magazine <em>Star</em>, where he&rsquo;s just taken over as editor. It&rsquo;s a rare slow news day for him, and he&rsquo;s in a reflective mood (only natural, since, as he points out, he is lying on a couch talking about his life). He&rsquo;s trying to explain how he became the consummate outsider that he&rsquo;s been over his 30 years in journalism. It goes back to his childhood in Baltimore, he says, in a time and place where the topic of race dominated the national discussion&mdash;and his family&rsquo;s kitchen table. His father worked in a meat-packing plant, his mother was a bookkeeper. &ldquo;I grew up in a big civil-rights household,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Everyone in the extended family was part of that.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Then a curious thing happens. He says, offhand, that he left home when he was only 17. But asked to elaborate, he becomes visibly uncomfortable and clams up. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just not going to answer that,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been on my own a long time.&rdquo; And with that, the analysis session is over.</p>
<p>
If the tables were turned&mdash;if Perel were a former football star accused of murdering his ex-wife, a top talk radio host with a painkiller problem, or a presidential candidate with a hippie mistress and a love child&mdash;there is no question what he&rsquo;d do. He&rsquo;d send a team of reporters to Baltimore, have them spend months tracking down his family. He&rsquo;d have photographers following himself. He&rsquo;d spend thousands convincing reluctant sources to come forward, and commissioning psychological analyses of himself. He wouldn&rsquo;t rest until he had the full story. But apparently even the former editor-in-chief of the <em>National Enquirer</em> has some secrets he&rsquo;d rather keep out of the public eye.</p>
<p>
When he was in school at the University of Maryland, Perel worked on the college newspaper, <em>The Diamondback</em>, with a young man named David Simon, who&rsquo;d go on to become one of the icons of modern-day journalism as the former <em>Baltimore Sun</em> reporter <a href="http://www.hbo.com/the-wire/index.html" target="_blank">behind HBO&rsquo;s <em>The Wire</em></a>. Simon can be vicious about reporters and editors he doesn&rsquo;t respect&mdash;the last season of <em>The Wire</em> featured characters who were thinly veiled representations of some of his old journalistic enemies. But when it comes to Perel, Simon has nothing but praise.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Perel was one of the guys who did it right,&rdquo; Simon says of their days together on the college paper. &ldquo;He seemed to be cut out for newspapering.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Some years later, when Perel was editing the <em>Enquirer</em> and Simon was at the <em>Sun</em>, the two reconnected by phone.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;When he told me he was the editor in chief of the <em>Enquirer</em>, I remember saying, &lsquo;Dude, with the possible exception of Johnny Apple at <em>The New York Times</em> and whoever gets to write the page-one headlines at the <em>New York Post</em>, you have maybe the best job in journalism,&rsquo;&rdquo; Simon recalls, adding that Perel replied, &ldquo;No shit.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Perel has been beating even the biggest papers to stories for years now, but he really made his mark during the 2008 presidential race, when the <em>Enquirer</em>, under his leadership, <a href="http://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/update-john-edwards-love-child-scandal" target="_blank">broke the story</a> that former senator and Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards had an extramarital affair and fathered an illegitimate child. Last week, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/06/03/edwards.case/index.html" target="_blank">Edwards was indicted on federal charges</a> related to money allegedly paid to cover up that affair&mdash;charges that might never have been filed without the work of Perel&rsquo;s team.</p>
<p>
For getting the story that no one else could, and eventually forcing Edwards in to a confession, the <em>Enquirer</em> finally earned a begrudging measure of esteem from the rest of the media.</p>
<p>
Perel claims not to care. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all about breaking the story&mdash;it&rsquo;s about breaking the story,&rdquo; he insisted over lunch near his office last week.</p>
<p>
That&rsquo;s been his attitude for decades now. <em>The National Enquirer</em> may be the Rodney Dangerfield of newspapers&mdash;it gets no respect&mdash;but Perel had his chance to go mainstream. He preferred the <em>Enquirer</em>. After graduating college, he worked for a short time covering sports for <em>The Washington Post</em> and Gannett&rsquo;s <em>Florida Today</em>. But he was seduced by the <em>Enquirer</em> and the seemingly unlimited resources it devoted to stories. After taking a year off to travel the world, he joined the <em>Enquirer</em> as a reporter in 1985. By 1996, when O.J. Simpson went on trial for murder, he&rsquo;d worked his way up to senior editor. It was <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1995-12-10/magazine/tm-12485_1_national-enquirer" target="_blank">his coverage of the Simpson story</a>&mdash;the Enquirer was the first to report on Simpson&rsquo;s now-infamous Bruno Magli shoes and the knife he bought shortly before he allegedly stabbed his ex-wife and her friend Ron Goldman, and it was first to publish Nicole Brown Simpson&rsquo;s diaries&mdash;that really brought him to the attention of David Pecker, the chairman, president and CEO of <em>Enquirer</em> parent AMI.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;David was the go-to guy,&rdquo; Pecker says. &ldquo;He was very aggressive. He lived on a kibbutz in Israel. He was at <em>The Washington Post</em>. He had that kind of inner creativity, aggressiveness. I also saw that he could manage.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Pecker gave him more responsibilities, including the weight-loss magazine <em>Looking Good Now</em> and <em>Bat Boy Lives!</em>, a book based on the mutant creation of AMI&rsquo;s <em>Weekly World News</em>.</p>
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<p>
In 2008, Pecker tapped Perel to head up Radar Online after AMI took it over and relaunched it as a gossip news site. His latest assignment, at <em>Star</em>, is the closest he&rsquo;s come to the mainstream media&mdash;although he still sees himself as planted firmly in the outsider camp. &ldquo;I like the small stuff,&rdquo; he says.</p>
<p>
Hunched over his computer in his Manhattan office, Perel is rumpled, shirt untucked&mdash;Simon remembers him as &ldquo;look[ing] like one bong hit too many on a Saturday night. Real scruffy, eyes glazed, sleep deprivation and a stoner laugh.&rdquo; But he&rsquo;s alert, monitoring a steady stream of emails while contemplating a Paris Hilton photo feature for the upcoming issue of <em>Star</em>. Perel loves the spread, which depicts the heiress holding various exotic animals. He pronounces one image &ldquo;a killer photo.&rdquo; A burly, tattooed staffer swings by to report on his progress on a story. Today is slow; Perel&rsquo;s phone has been silent for the past hour. Two years into running Radar, which he continues to oversee, he&rsquo;s still adjusting to the round-the-clock demands of the Web. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m having so many days where I feel like the day&rsquo;s never going to end,&rdquo; he said.</p>
<p>
And yet Perel made the transition to the Web better than most other print journalists have been able to. Within a year of taking over at Radar, the flailing, orphaned website left over from the failed <em>Radar</em> magazine, he&rsquo;d remade it completely, establishing it as a promising challenger to the deep-pocketed TMZ, which is owned by Time Warner. Under Perel, Radar <a href="http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/07/world-exclusive-audio-mel-gibsons-explosive-racist-rant-listen-it-here" target="_blank">posted audiotapes of Mel Gibson&rsquo;s angry, threatening rants</a> to his ex-girlfriend, and broke juicy items about celebrities from Lindsay Lohan and Halle Berry to Charlie Sheen.</p>
<p>
All the while, Perel&rsquo;s earned praise from unlikely people, including Martin Singer, a lawyer to the stars who&rsquo;s gotten the nickname &ldquo;Mad Dog Marty&rdquo; for the ferocious way in which he&rsquo;s gone after the media on behalf of some of Hollywood&rsquo;s biggest celebrities, like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Britney Spears, and Demi Moore. &ldquo;One of the things that&rsquo;s remarkable is how quickly Radar has grown,&rdquo; Singer says of his frequent verbal sparring partner. &ldquo;He gets it right many times. He&rsquo;s broken some huge, national stories.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Now, Perel has got his hands full with <em>Star</em>. His appointment in April came at a critical time for AMI: Recently out of bankruptcy, the company had just moved into new offices in lower Manhattan and is now on firmer financial footing. But <em>Star</em> is well past its prime. The periodical soared when Bonnie Fuller turned it from a newspaper-stock tabloid into a glossy in 2004. But now it&rsquo;s No. 3 in ad pages, behind <em>People</em> and <em>Us Weekly</em> in the crowded field of celebrity magazines, and its circulation has slid 40 percent in the past five years, to just under 930,000. Its readers&rsquo; median age, 38, is relatively old for the category. Like all weeklies, it has to fight to keep up with a torrent of Web coverage.</p>
<p>
<em>Star</em> has become associated with covering gossip&rsquo;s softer side. Like other celebrity magazines, it tends to shy away from going too hard after those it covers, but Perel&rsquo;s game plan is to punch up the reporting while still staying celebrity-friendly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to bring more oomph to it, put more celebrities on the record, make it red-hot,&rdquo; he declares. &ldquo;<em>Star</em> is going to prove, in this market, it has the best information, the most accurate information.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
That&rsquo;s a lofty goal, but Perel might be <em>Star</em>&rsquo;s best shot. When the <a href="http://gawker.com/5802704/is-this-arnold-schwarzeneggers-love-child" target="_blank">Arnold Schwarzenegger love child scandal</a> broke, for instance, he assembled a dozen staffers and laid out a challenge to them: Get the first photos of the mistress, Schwarzenegger&rsquo;s former housekeeper. By 10 p.m. that same day, he had posted them on Radar, holding back some to appear in the next issue of <em>Star</em>. The blockbuster photos showed the governor squeezing the woman, who was dressed in a skimpy police costume.</p>
<p>
The photographs got huge play on <em>Entertainment Tonight</em> and the Huffington Post. It was a big departure from the classic posed photos that <em>Star</em> typically published, but the issue sold an estimated 450,000 copies on the newsstand, making it one of <em>Star</em>&rsquo;s best performances in weeks and putting it on the right track to catch up with rivals like <em>Us Weekly</em> and <em>In Touch</em>, which sell close to 700,000 on stands on a weekly basis.</p>
<p>
Back in Florida, Perel has only a short time for another interview, this one conducted on the fly&mdash;he&rsquo;s on his cell phone, calling from his car. The news has picked up. Perel has been awake since 7 a.m., sending his staff off on a number of stories, including a cross-country chase of a prominent figure whom he won&rsquo;t name because he believes he has the story to himself. &ldquo;All hell&rsquo;s been breaking loose. Pure insanity,&rdquo; he says.</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, he&rsquo;s still refusing to talk about his adolescence, reverting to the kinds of clich&eacute;s for which he&rsquo;d berate his writers.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Uhhhh, just some stuff [that] I don&rsquo;t like to talk about,&rdquo; he says when pressed for details on why he left home at 17. &ldquo;I had a happy childhood. But when I reached a certain age, I left home, situations changed. Every family has their stuff. Nothing cataclysmic, but once I got out, I got out.&rdquo; He no longer speaks with his father, he&rsquo;ll admit that, and he&rsquo;ll say that he graduated high school early and worked his way through college with fast-food, carpentry, and slaughterhouse jobs. But that&rsquo;s all he&rsquo;ll say.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I get the irony, I get the irony,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;And you can accuse me of evading the question. I would definitely ask the questions, break you down until you answered me.&rdquo;<br />
<br />
<img alt="" src="/files/uploads/FEA-perel-large-2011.jpg" style="width: 657px; height: 766px;" /></p>
The PressDavid PerelNational EnquirerOnlineNewspaperMagazineMon, 06 Jun 2011 10:26:41 +0000132217 at http://www.adweek.com